The present invention relates to a device for pinning bone fractures.
Devices of this type are known and one particular commercial version of the device is known as the "rush" pin manufactured by the Rush/Berivon, Inc. Co. Meridianm, Miss.
These pins are pre-bent elongated metal pins having an elongated shaft ending in a point and a head at one end which includes an open hook.
In use, a hole is drilled in the fractured bone to be set and the pin is inserted therein by a mallet or similar device until fully inserted.
Recently, the pinning technique has been used in conjunction with a tension band technique wherein a figure-eight shaped band is held in place at one loop with the heads of two pins and the other loop is placed through a hole in the bone in order to provide dynamic compression on the fracture.
One disadvantage of these two combined techniques is that the tension on the band has tended to force the pins outwardly from the bone, which is undesirable since it requires the pins to be reimplanted or removed by the doctor if the fracture is healed.